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[sex] dress codes

Islamic fundamentalism, already strong in southern Kyrgyzstan, might get a boost from the country’s current political uncertainties, following the ouster of President Kurmanbak Bakiyev who was replaced by a caretaker government.

A famous political online community forum is pushing for liberal MPs to submit a question to the Minister of Interior Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabah on why women wearing niqabs are allowed to drive without being fined. According to a law passed in 2006, women covering their faces are not allowed to drive cars in Kuwait, but this law has not been put into practice. The posted announcement on the online forum quotes driving safety as the reason for this incentive, and says that since other MPs are submitting questions which demand that the law be practiced and followed thoroughly, this is one of the laws that has been ignored for a while and, it insists: "It is about time that it is put into practice."

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes. Iran is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric's unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.